


sorrow is my own yard where the new grass flames

by idlewheel



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Mom!Amy, Rain Wells, Teacher!Amy, also, his uncle's stocks finally making their way into fics, okay jake owns a blocbuster, teddy isn't really all that present but his presence is, yeah no k!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 07:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15431913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlewheel/pseuds/idlewheel
Summary: It should be raining, is the only thing Amy Santiago can think when they tell her that her husband is dead.





	sorrow is my own yard where the new grass flames

**Author's Note:**

> title from "the widow's lament in springtime" by William Carlos Williams.

It should be raining when they tell her. Instead, the sun has burst like a balloon, painting Brooklyn a searing yellow. Her family should be at the beach right now instead of having their world turned upside down.

The cops await a reaction, used to fresh widows shedding their pain in the form of tears and screams. She should be screaming or at least thinking of something other than the fact that it’s so damn hot. The cops look at one another as Amy stands there, barely breathing.

The silence in the apartment is eerie even to her ears, and all she can hear is her heartbeat and the distant echo of her family being torn in half. 

_It should be raining_ , is the only thing Amy Santiago can think when they tell her that her husband is dead.

* * *

Sorrow is what follows, with desperation quickly tripping behind and clinging hungry eyes at her every turn. Her daughter, Rain, is quiet and thoughtful through it all. She was named after a vicious thunderstorm that struck the night of her birth, but she’s nothing more than a gentle drizzle. She’s her father shrunken down into an eight-year-old girl and Amy wants to cry at her wise, thoughtful eyes. However, it seems her eyes have gone dry since that sunny day when Teddy left.

Her mother stays for two days, following after Amy like a clingy shadow and offering her food constantly. She knows her mother means well and that she should eat, but how does she tell her mother that there’s a hole inside her that no food can fill. That the guilt and sadness have formed an alliance and are burning a hole in her soul. That it feels like she’s being torn in half and there's no way of sewing her together again.

Her mother leaves after assuring her that she’ll be at the funeral on Saturday. Amy wishes that she was six again so she can cover up her ears at the word, she wishes her nails were talons so she could claw off her ears. That word, that wretched word. 

_Funeral_. Who knew a word could make something so concrete. 

The night before the funeral all Amy can do is stare at the ceiling with eyes as dry as a desert. The only reassuring thing is her daughter’s hummingbird heartbeat and delicate breath. She sleeps tightly next to her now, and Amy is glad for the company. Ever since Teddy left, Rain and Amy have shared a bed. She counts her daughter’s breaths with every rise of her chest and tries to count her own. Truth be told, she’d be surprised if she has breathed more than three times since the news or if her heart has any blood left in it for she’s sure it’s all been dried up now.

It’s been three days since Teddy has died. She counts the hours in her head. 720 hours give or take, and her heart hasn’t caved into her chest yet. She holds Rain closer, relishing her vanilla scented hair. The light of the moon illuminates the fresh tear streaks on her daughter’s face and Amy’s heart lurches at the fact that her daughter has been crying in her sleep. 

She wishes she knew when this will get better because she wants to count how many hours of grief are left in her daughter’s heart. She feels so useless, she can’t cry and she can’t do anything to ease her daughter’s pain.

All she can do lately is count. So she does.

The clock reads three in the morning and Amy counts how many hours until she has to put on a scratchy black dress and stare tearlessly at the black casket. 

Eight hours.

She closes her eyes and continues counting down.

* * *

Jake should be sad. He’s at a funeral. He’s wearing his itchiest, darkest suit, and all he can feel is claustrophobic. It’s not entirely his fault; he didn’t really know Teddy. You can’t be sad over someone you only knew from awkward elevator conversation.

He was surprised at the invitation in his mail-cubby and quickly tried to think of an excuse to skip it but couldn’t. This what your neighbors did for you: they came to your funeral reception and tried to remember the last time they spoke to you. 

Now, Jake sits on the sofa in Teddy’s family’s quiet apartment. He clears his throat in a quiet manner, but it quickly becomes the loudest sound in the room. At the treacherous sound of him clearing his throat, Teddy’s widow looks his way curiously.

 _Amy_ , his neighbor, and mother to Rain. Amy, to whom he’s only spoken to three times-- the third being fifteen minutes prior when he walked in. She had nodded and looked over his shoulder as he offered his condolences.

His eyes quickly dart back to his shiny black shoes, heart beating loudly in his ears. He rubs the tips of his shoes on the dark rug under his feet. He wonders if it was cleaned recently and makes a mental note to add a carpet steaming to his funeral planning. He looks around the apartment, at the quiet people around him. 

This apartment is almost exactly the same as his but a cleaner, better version. There’s no three mini fridges stacked atop one another or a huge pile of takeout menus by the door. But, there’s that heavy wooden door that leads to the master bedroom, the closet down the hallway and the tiny window by the TV that lets in a sliver of light from the street.

He wants to leave, but he has barely been here fifteen minutes and that would be rude. And he’s already been rude, seeing as he’s the loudest person here. Not even the widow is crying. She’s gone from looking at Jake to staring out the window. Jake wonders if she wishes she was somewhere other than here or if she wishes the window was wide enough so she could jump from it.

She’s still standing beside her mother next to the front door, holding her daughter’s hand. Her black dress ends at her ankles and her thick hair is tied neatly at the nape of her neck. She looks perfectly put together, like she’s a guest here and not the wife of the departed.

Jake steals a peak from under his eyelashes, marveling at the stony mask on her face.

He’s seen her around before, although it’s not exactly hard not to when they live six doors from one another. She blinks once and then her eyes are on him again. Jake redoubles back to his shoes.

After a moment, Amy’s voice is the only thing heard in the room as she whispers assurances to her mother. Her mother, who, in quiet Spanish, tells Amy to not leave but she does not listen. Amy starts to walk down the middle of the living room, towards the hallway that leads to the bedrooms and the bathroom. Her heels make a clicking sound as she walks and the room stares at her departure. Jake follows her with his eyes, knowing that she’s heading towards the master bedroom. Down the hall, third door to the left. However, he looks down before she makes it there and traces the edges of the carpet with his shoes. 

The moment that the door closes behind her, all of the invited whisper among themselves. It’s hard not to hear their disdain over her tear-free face. Even her own family join the gossip. 

Rain stands in the front of the room, holding her grandmother’s hand and Jake yearns to go up to her and cover her ears from such disgusting words. It makes him angry that they’re judging her for not crying when they’ve never been in her shoes. He wants to reprimand them all one by one.

Instead, like a true coward, he stands and heads for the bathroom. This time he doesn’t care that his shoes make noise and he doesn’t care about the stares. All he wants is out of the room. He figures he can stay there for the rest of the funeral, or at least until it’s acceptable for him to leave. 

He opens the door of the restroom, coming face to face with a smoking Amy. She sits on the edge of the clawed bathtub, cigarette held up to her lips. She lets out a breath of gray smoke that makes her look like a dragon. The tiny window by the tub is opened and the smoke wafts out into the streets. Jake can hear the taxis and the Brooklyn noise from below.

Jake stumbles for a second, tripping over his feet as he tries to apologize but only makes awkward sounds that don’t resemble words. Amy stands slowly, stubbing the cigarette with the edge of her heel.

She doesn’t look surprised or ashamed that he caught her, as a matter of fact, she’s still wearing that same mask from before. She doesn't even pick up the cigarette from the floor; she just stares at him and crosses her arms. Jake mumbles a quick ‘sorry’ and tries to leave the room.

“Jake, right?” she asks before he can leave. Jake clears his throat and nods. His hand doesn’t leave the door, the desperation of leaving clawing its way out his chest. Amy’s eyes are piercing him and he just stares. “You can close it,” she mumbles after a second, nodding towards the ajar door. Jake does as he's told, cringing when the door closes behind him. Amy leans over the back of the toilet and comes out with another cigarette, brandishing her lighter from the pocket of her dress. She smokes it quietly, her face as closed off as before. Jake marvels at the fact that mere minutes ago, he was in one of the most awkward situations of his life because he had just cleared his throat but now he is sequestered to watch the widow of a man he barely knew smoke. 

“I don’t smoke often,” she says, sitting back on the edge of the tub. She raises her eyes from the floor and looks into his. "But all those people out there staring at me are giving me so much anxiety. They’re expecting me to cry or something, but -” she pauses. She bites her bottom lip down so hard it turns as white as pearls. She sighs, taking a huge drag of the cigarette. As she continues speaking, the smoke exits her mouth. “I want to cry, but I just _can't_ .” She chuckles drily. “If I could make myself cry, I would.” The humor quickly leaves her face as she takes another drag of the cigarette. She stands from the tub and starts pacing quietly, although it’s extremely hard to do in the small restroom.

“Right…” Jake says awkwardly. He glances over his shoulder towards the door and fumbles at it with the palms of his hands. Amy stops her pacing and looks over at him.

“Do you remember the last conversation you had with my husband?” she wonders quietly and walks so close to him that Jake can see the dark flecks of obsidian in her eyes. She looks manic like she’s trying to hold on to something that keeps slipping through her fingers. Her mask has cracked and what lies underneath scares Jake. “Is it bad that I can’t?” she whispers like she’s telling him a secret.

“Huh?” Jake asks dimly, distracted by the crackled jewels that are her eyes. 

“Yeah.” The manic leaves and is replaced with the mask again. She crosses her arms without a care, ashes floating down and staining her dress gray It’s like she’s hugged a lightning bolt. “I don’t remember, but you have to. You two were friends.”

"I, um, didn’t really know him much…” he begins, confused over the exact definition of 'friends.' He wants to explain that he and Teddy were not friends by the whole definition of the word, but her eyes are begging for an answer and he decides to give her one. “We... mostly talked about elevators.” 

“What?” she steps back, shakes her head. Confusion clouds her face.

“We mostly talked about how slow the elevator was,” he explains meekly, remembering their awkward conversations and their small smiles whenever it shook, which was often. Amy narrows her eyes.

“You talked about the _elevator_?” 

“Yeah, mostly. Although one time he gave me sugar...I don’t think you were home.” he finishes, trailing off but Amy’s not really listening because she’s flexing her jaw and ferociously smoking her still lit cigarette. 

“I thought you knew him from work. You two had drinks every Friday.” her eyes widen, and she nearly drops her cigarette as her hands fall to her sides.“Are you saying my husband was _lying_ to me?” Jake misses the stone mask as a sea of fury makes a home in her eyes. She steps closer to him again. “What else was he lying to me about, huh? Is your last even ‘Stevens’?” 

Jake steps back from her fury and from the lit cigarette that she’s now pointing towards his chest. “Peralta. My last name is Peralta.” He mutters, the invitation in his cubby suddenly making sense.

“You’re not Jake Stevens?” she whispers, the sea in her eyes turning into stone. 

“No… although his mail-cubby is right next to mine.” Jake swallows, trying to think of a way to leave without making this even more awkward than it already is. He’s thinking so forward that he’s already looking for a new apartment. One where he longer has to see Amy or recall what happened here in this apartment. He feels like the stupidest person alive. Of course, he wasn’t going to be invited to the funeral of a man he barely knew. He was stupid for attending and not skipping it like he should’ve.

“So, where’s Jake Stevens?” Amy asks quietly, stepping back from him. It’s like she’s just realized just how close she is to Jake and her cheeks burn bright at the anger she lashed out at him.

“Actually, I think he’s in Paris right now.” Jake mumbles and Amy blinks rapidly, drowning in the sea of information.

“Jake Stevens, my husband’s best friend, is in Paris? He doesn’t know that he-he’s... dead?” she asks, frozen like a statue. Then, it’s like pressing play on a paused movie because she moves so quickly that Jake nearly misses it. It’s like going from black and white to color at the drop of a hat. Maybe it is finally saying that word. _Dead. Done-zo. Gone to high heaven._

Or maybe it’s the fact that the one person that wasn’t Teddy’s family or his wife isn’t at his final goodbye.

This is all it takes for the dam to finally break, and she falls limply into his arms and weeps loudly. Her cigarette falls from her fingers and lands on his shoes, melting a hole in the cheap pleather. Jake pats her back awkwardly and extinguishes the cigarette with his heel.

“If it’s any help, this is a lovely funeral,” he mutters after a moment of her full on weeping onto his best suit. 

At this, she cries louder and Jake feels like a dick. 

* * *

Jake doesn’t see Amy for three weeks. He wants to apologize for making her cry and for leaving her a sobbing mess in the bathroom at the first chance he got. 

Or at the very least, wants to apologize for attending a funeral he wasn’t invited to.

But, in the third week, there’s a knock on his door at 7 pm on a Wednesday. Jake isn’t expecting to see her on the other side and he’s even more surprised that she’s holding an envelope in her hands. She looks well-rested and put together. But then again, the last time he saw her she had mascara tears staining her cheeks. 

“I just got a letter from Jake in Paris,” she says before he can get a word in. She swallows thickly. “He knows. That, you know, Teddy’s…” she trails off and Jake nods once, letting her know that he understands. Amy clears her throat. “I thought you’d like to know since...you know, you went instead of him. So... that’s it. Bye.” At that, she nods and quickly turns.

“I’m sorry.” Jake blurts out before she can go any further. Amy turns over her shoulder at him, furrowing her eyebrows at his confession. Jake clears his throat. “I’m sorry for making you cry.” 

Amy shakes her head, “No... um, I needed that.” A second of quiet.

“I don’t understand why everybody was pushing you to cry. I sobbed so hard when my grandmother passed away and everyone thought I was weird for it.” he shrugs.“We all process grief differently.”

“Right…” There’s a beat of awkward silence and Amy grasps the envelope closer to her chest.

“If you need anything -”

“We’re okay.” 

“I meant, like if you need someone’s suit to get dirty because you need to…” he trails off and Amy nods once, her face pinched together. There’s a flash of red on her cheeks as she remembers sobbing into his chest. 

Jake smiles a quick smile, feeling the awkwardness like a tentacle wrapped around his throat. Amy continues her walk to her apartment, and Jake closes the door to his, resting his forehead against the wood and cursing himself for being a world class dumbass. 

“Why couldn’t you just nod and smile, idiot?” he mutters to himself.

A knock thirty seconds later surprises him but the bigger surprise is that it’s Amy. She starts talking before he can even articulate a word.

"Actually, if you’re willing to help... the antenna from the TV has been down for two weeks. It breaks it very often, but you have to hold it up and it’s too heavy for me. It’s so damn old, but it gets the best signal, so…” she clears her throat nervously.“So, if you’re not doing anything, maybe you’ll help me?” She says it all with one quick breath and Jake can tell that she has practiced this and he wonders how long she’s been holding it in. It takes him less than ten seconds to agree.

Ten minutes later, he’s on top of a chair in her bedroom closet messing around with her antenna. She wasn’t kidding when she said it was heavy, Jake’s back burns with each second that he spends holding it up. He feels like Atlas holding up the Earth. Below by his feet, Amy holds the various tools he needs and hands them to him one by one.

He talks as he works, only pausing as she explains what he has to do next. At first, he babbled because he was nervous but he’s forgotten the last time he’s talked like this with somebody. Or even the last time someone has listened to anything he had to say. The thought makes him sad and then it makes him depressed because she’s probably feeling the same way.

Just two lonely people fixing an antenna from 1975.

He tells her of his store, his Blocbuster , where he’s the only employee and the manager. He’s not embarrassed by his store; he’s proud of it. After all, it brings food to the table and lets him watch Die Hard for free as many times as he wants.

“I thought those went extinct in 1992.” She replies, handing him the screwdriver. “Move that lever to the right. No, your other right.” Jake swears under his breath as he shifts the antenna, feeling a bead of sweat run down his temple. He tries to hide just how tired he is but the beads of sweat having a race down his face make that impossible.

“2013, actually.” he shrugs and continues. "My uncle died and left me a bunch of stock, and my store isn’t officially owned by Blockbuster. After they had gone bankrupt, I bought the store with the money I got from my shares. It’s privately owned but it’s not ‘Blockbuster” but a “Blocbuster’.” At her look, he explains, “No ‘K.’ Not very impressive, I know, but I love it.”

“Well, I consider being the only Blockbuster in New York a success,” she says back and takes the screwdriver from his hand. She hands him the wrench and watches Jake working. After a moment, she says, “I’m a teacher. I teach Math at Oakfield.”

“I hate Math.”

“Yeah, never heard that before.” she sighs. 

“Your daughter?” he asks after a second, noticing her goneness. 

“She’s at my mother's,” Amy says. “She’s going to be glad when she returns and the TV is finally working.”

There’s a beat of silence and then she says, “I want to thank you. I have seven brothers. I’d ask one of them to fix it but…” she trails off and shakes her head.“I’m a new widow; they already think I'm weak enough.”

“What about me? Don’t you care what I think?”

“I don’t know you. I don’t care what you think about me and I already snotted all over your suit. I’ve embarrassed myself in front of you already.” she shrugs.“So, who cares?”

Jake fights the urge to laugh. He nods along and climbs down the chair. “All done!” he says as they overhear the static on the TV turn to the Weather Channel.

"Thank you, Jake. Rain is going to be so happy."

"Yeah, well, no problem," he replies, unnerved by her small smile. It's minuscule, but it makes his heart beat quickly just the same.

"You have no idea how hard it is to entertain an eight-year-old with no TV. Especially one whose father has recently passed away." With that, the smile melts and her eyes grow somber. Jake swallows thickly and nods. "Do you have any kids?" she asks softly. 

"Nope." he pauses, wondering if he should tell her the sad story that is his life. He decides to give her a small preview only, not ready to scare her off just then. He'd unload the motherlode later. "I was married." he shrugs. "It didn't work out and we never had any kids."

"Why did it not work out?"

Jake pauses and he swallows down the real answer. Instead, he gives her the standard answer. "I was a cop back then, and she was a lawyer. It was never meant to work out." He doesn’t mention the six-months undercover or the fact that he was forced to leave the force three weeks later. He also misses the fact that it took Sophia only a month after their divorce to move on. That it’s been three years and he’s only had a handful of dates or the fact that holding her while she cried is the farthest he’s gone with a woman in months.

She ignores everything about Sophia, which he's glad about, the only thing that interests her is his past occupation. "You were a cop?" she asks as her eyes gleam and it makes Jake miss being a cop one last time.

"Yep. I was a detective at the 99."

"I come from a family of cops and of course, Teddy was a cop." she pauses and her voice gets low, like she's telling him a secret. "I was in the academy, but I had to leave."

"Why?"

Her eyes go far into space for a second but she quickly drops back to Earth and says, "I got married." There's a hidden gleam in her eyes that whispers that there are some things she's not telling him. The answer is clear: _You have things to hide and so do I_. Jake realizes that she saw the same gleam in his eyes and that this is the real reason that she didn’t ask him to elaborate about Sophia and he does the same. He nods and doesn’t ask her anything else.

There’s a moment where they stand there in her closet amongst Teddy’s old shirts and her pretty dresses. There’s a faint smell of smoke, and Jake can tell that she uses this place to smoke, too.

“I didn’t remember, by the way,” she says after a second. “I didn’t remember my last words to him.” she looks around the closet, her eyes settling on an old green tie of his. She caresses it softly once and Jake feels like he’s intruding in a secret moment. “It shouldn’t matter, but I can’t help but let it matter to me.”

“Maybe you’ll remember or maybe you won’t.” She looks into his eyes at this. “Wouldn’t you rather it be something like reminding him to get the milk rather than a big fight?” He asks, remembering the last night of his marriage and the angry words that expelled themselves from his mouth without thinking. Sophia’s wounded face and her own angry words that stabbed like knives. The internal wounds that took years to heal.

Amy nods and her voice is as soft as feathers as she says, “You’re right. You’re right.”

Jake clears his throat after a second, a strange feeling overtaking his body. Amy looks up from Teddy's tie and her hand drops back down to her side. “I should go. I have an early shift tomorrow and those kids films aren’t going to rearrange themselves.” Amy follows him out and they stare at one another at the threshold of her front door for a moment. It’s not an unsettling silence and it isn’t a comfortable one either. It’s a type of silence that Jake has never experienced. 

“Bye, Jake, and thank you.”

“Bye, Amy.” She smiles a tiny smile and closes the door, leaving Jake in the empty hallway. Jake stares at the wood door for a second and then makes his own way home. 

He hopes this isn't the last time he speaks to her and it isn't. It isn't the last time he's in her apartment either or the last time that he fixes that wretched antenna. There's a weird feeling in his chest that he can't shake that follows him to bed. It's like watching something being made before his eyes.

And he's right, it's the start of the story.

**Author's Note:**

> hi there, hope you like it! writer's block is a damn bitch and i haven't written in months. please leave me a comment telling me what you think.
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.idlewheelposts.tumblr.com)


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